1. Field of Invention
The present invention generally relates to data storage systems, and more particularly to data storage systems using one or more or solid-state storage devices.
2. Description of Related Art
The demand for solid-state data storage capacity, including Flash data storage capacity, is continually increasing. While the capacities available from storage devices are also increasing, many applications have data storage requirements that exceed the capacity available from a single storage device. One storage solution for these applications is a data storage system using more than one, or an array of, storage devices.
Storage device arrays increase storage capacity by providing more storage locations to store data from a host system or host device. However, a host system typically transfers data to and from the data storage system at a faster rate than individual storage devices can read or write the data. Thus, while storage capacity may be increased by adding storage devices, the data transfer performance of the data storage system may not be improved, and thus, as a whole is typically limited to the level of performance of the individual storage devices.
In light of the above, a need exists for improving the performance and the data transfer rate of a data storage system.